


Hunger

by indigo_inks



Category: Hänsel und Gretel | Hansel and Gretel (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Cannibalism as a Metaphor for Sexual Desire, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24023764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_inks/pseuds/indigo_inks
Summary: The hunger. Gretel couldn’t remember when it started.
Relationships: Gretel/Hänsel | Hansel (Fairy Tales)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: Once Upon a Fic 2020





	Hunger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rokosourobouros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokosourobouros/gifts).



The hunger. Gretel couldn’t remember when it started. It came on gradually, like water brought slowly to the boil, so that at the start she wasn’t certain of anything whatsoever amiss. Over the course of days and weeks and months, however, the desperate, gnawing ache in her belly intensified. By the end, it was nigh unbearable.

“I’m hungry!” her little brother Hänsel whined softly.

“Quiet!” their mother snapped. She slammed her palm down hard against the table, making everything on top of it jump. It made Gretel and Hänsel jump, too.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” their father suggested. He and their mother exchanged significant looks over the heads of the children.

“Yes, father.” Hänsel lapsed into dejected silence and slunk off to bed. Gretel followed, sliding into bed beside him, careful not to let their bodies touch. She wanted so badly to comfort her little brother, but she was afraid that she had no real comfort to give. There was no possibility – none whatsoever – of satiating this hunger…

Gretel couldn’t sleep that night, the ache was so bad. This is how she heard her parents conspiring in the dark.

“Don’t you see? This can’t continue,” their mother said. “We have nothing for them! And I will not have such hunger in my home!”

“Very well. I will take them into the woods tomorrow—” their father said.

“And leave them there,” their mother finished, well satisfied.

After she was certain her parents were sound asleep, Gretel reached out Hänsel and shook him awake. Trying not to cry, she told him what she’d heard.

“Ah, don’t cry, dearest sister,” he said, wrapping his skinny arms around her waist and kissing her cheek. “I’ll figure something out.”

And he did. Hänsel was smart like that. But their parents were persistent, and eventually Gretel and her little brother were lost in the woods with no hope of finding their way back home.

They found the cottage instead. It was made up entirely of sweets, and they fell upon it, ravenous, devouring whole licorice roof tiles and shards of sugar windowpanes and bitten off chunks of frosted gingerbread wall. They’d been lost in the woods for days. Gretel couldn’t remember the last time they’d eaten so well.

The old woman who lived in the cottage invited them inside to stop them eating her house, and the food she made them was, indeed, even more delicious than the pieces of house had been, and when she put them to sleep together in her guest bed – Gretel, as usual, careful not to let her body touch Hänsel’s – brother and sister fell asleep almost immediately.

The next morning when Gretel awoke, Hänsel wasn’t in bed with her. The old woman had locked him in cage by the oven.

“What – what are you _doing_?!” she cried, appalled.

“The hunger,” the old woman replied. “I know you feel it; I feel it, too. I was like you, once upon a time. Well, you need not deny yourself any longer, my dear. We’ll fatten him up, won’t we? Hot and good, straight from the oven, yes? Mmm, scrumptious.”

Gretal gasped. “You’re a witch!”

“Just so,” the old woman who was also a witch said. “Don’t worry, my dear; we’ll share him.”

Gretel just stared, open-mouthed. She didn’t want to share her brother with this witch, no matter how terribly hungry she became. But she couldn’t free her brother from that cage, not with the witch so near, and she would not leave him to this terrible fate. She knew she would have to stay and play along.

And so, the witch put Gretel to work, baking the bread, slicing the meat, and stirring the stew pot that would fatten her little brother up. Hänsel was given the best, richest food every day while Gretel was given only bones, gristle, and crumbs. If she was lucky, she was given raw vegetables.

“Don’t worry; you’ll be feasting soon,” the witch said.

Needless to say, Gretel was hungry. Worse than she ever had been at home.

But Hänsel was smart. He knew the witch was nearly blind, and each night, when she demanded that Hänsel stick his arm out between the bars of the cage so that she could pinch it, he proffered a piece of firewood instead.

“Skin and bones,” the witch muttered. “Skin and bones. Why do you not fatten up?”

Thus things proceeded for four weeks. By the first day of the fifth week, though, the witch had lost all patience. “We’re eating you today, whether you be fat or skinny!” she declared. To Gretel, she said, “Ready the oven. I want it nice and hot!”

Gretel dawdled and played stupid. She didn’t want the witch to put her little brother in the oven! “The oven isn’t getting hot,” she complained. “I don’t understaaaand…”

“Foolish girl,” the witch said. “Perhaps the flue is blocked. Get in there and clean it out.”

“I can’t. I’m too big to get into the oven!” Gretel protested.

“No, stupid girl, you’re not. If _I_ can fit in there, _you_ can, too,” the witch said.

Then, to make her point, the witch climbed into the oven. Once she was completely in, Gretel latched the oven door behind her so that she was trapped and could not climb out again. For all Gretel knew, the witch was roasted alive in her own oven. She didn’t care what happened to the witch; she was too hungry.

She freed Hänsel from the cage and fell upon him, ravenous. The hunger had swept away her shame, and there was no one around to stop her anymore, no one, even, to tell her to wait. No one with whom she needed to share. She wrapped her arms around her little brother and devoured his lips. With a cry of mingled pleasure and pain, her nether-mouth swallowed him whole.

He was as hungry for her as she was for him. Once wasn’t enough. Over and over and over again, they consumed one another.

When finally they rose from their copulation, they discovered that the witch woman was also a rich woman, her coffers full to the brim with gems and precious metals.

“We could bring these home to our parents…if we can find the path,” Hänsel said.

“We’d just go hungry again,” Gretel said. “And why would we want to do that?”

They didn’t, not now that they’d known true satiation. So they didn’t, and they lived happily ever after. Together.


End file.
